Modern mills for the production of tubes and other elongated stock forms commonly produce the tubing in endless lengths, which continuously emanate from the tubing mill. In order to provide the severing of the emanating tubing stock into the required lengths, cutoff presses are provided which receive the tubing and sever the lengths therefrom "on the fly", by arrangements which clamp the cutoff apparatus to the moving tube and sever it during a short cycle of movement during which the cutoff die set moves with the tubing. The severed lengths are then received by tube handling equipment which serves to rack or box the tubes along side the line of movement out of the tubing mill.
This equipment usually takes the form of runout tables having Vee sides, configured to receive the particular size of tubing to be handled. The runout table is pivoted along its length such as to enable the tubes to be dumped laterally into receiving shipping crates, racks, etc.
For very large tubes, this approach creates design difficulties inasmuch as the weights involved with larger tube sizes requires considerable power to operate, particularly at the rapid cycle rates at which such equipment is required to be operated. The nature of the pivoting movement is such that the slight upward motion of the tubes involved as the table pivots away requires the pivoting apparatus to slightly lift the tubing in order to dump.
It has thus heretofore been proposed to provide a runout table of this general nature in which the Vee sides are pivoted with respect to each other such as to enable them to be inclined downwardly, causing the tube length to drop directly from the runout table directly into the tube receiving structure.
This approach eliminates the requirement to lift the tubing in the process of dumping it and accordingly the design requirements for operating the apparatus are much less severe.
This arrangement involves the provision of one or more cylinders which are directly on the Vee sides, serving to raise or lower the Vee sides. However, since such runout tables must be of considerable length, on the order of forty feet or more, for standard applications, the degree of sag of the sides down the length thereof tends to become excessive, particularly after continued operation of the equipment. This drawback has heretofore precluded the successful development of such a pivoted Vee side double dump runout table.
While a number of cylinders could be provided down the length of the table, this obviously would greatly increase the cost of the equipment due to the need for additional cylinders, lines, controls, etc., and the need to adjust the various components which operate together.
Runout tables are commonly adjusted in height for use with tubing of various diameters to keep the center of the tubing at a constant height. This necessitates considerable labor in setting up different tube diameters, as well as resulting excessive down time during changeovers.
Furthermore, the use of a single fixed "Vee" configuration sometimes creates problems when relatively small tube diameters are attempted to be handled with a shallow Vee, since such small diameter tubing is flexible, and tends to be inadequately confined by the Vee sides.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a Vee runout table which may be quickly and easily adapted to tubing of differing diameters, and which can guide relatively flexible smaller diameter tubing.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a double dump runout table of the type described in which the Vee sides are pivoted with respect to each other, but in which the pivoting movement of the Vee sides does not result in significant sagging of the Vee sides down the length thereof.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a relatively simple operating component for such table which serves to enable rapid cycling of the pivoting movement, and which also readily accommodates tubing of various sizes with a relatively simple adjustment to the equipment.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide such a pivoted side double dump runout table in which the various linkages operated in a highly reliable manner.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such equipment which may be operated by a minimum number of power cylinders, while insuring adequate structural integrity of the Vee sides.